Dual-Component Composite Membranes for Efficient Desalination and Ion Separations

To solve the global water scarcity problem and meet the increasing demand for lithium, this thesis investigates various dual-component composite membranes for high performance desalination and lithium extraction processes. It shows that the composite membranes support wide water channels to significantly enhance the high-quality freshwater productivity from the highly salty water, block the defects to prevent the unwanted transport of metal ions and realize high lithium selectivity from salt solutions, and construct additional anion transport channels to enable continuous selective permeation of lithium ions with reduced energy input.